Do Roombas include any ML component? I thought they followed a rather straightforward heuristic along the lines of a random walk, with turns when they hit an obstacle.

Some roomba types also use kalman filters (or similar) to help map out a room. Honestly I’d be surprised if ml gave you anything valuable above some already well known algorithms in this space other than a marketing bullet point.

The early generations worked as you describe. Newer/better ones attempt to map out the layout of the home, which allows them to cover larger areas, return to base to recharge/dump dirt, and to only gently touch objects instead of slamming into them at full speed. They actually probably still don't need ML for all of that, motion planning was able to avoid the need for "learning" for decades. But I bet they do use ML anyway.

New roombas and clones map your house with lidar and let you clean exact zones using a map from an app.

That’s how it operated a decade ago but they currently use computer vision to map your house and navigate the world

Ah CV not ML? No CNNs in there?